If you're crazy and you know it....
by The Omniscient Bookseller
Summary: A short little thingy in which we discover why Dutchy was rubbing his head with a towel during CTB- he has OCD
1. the first

Did you really think I owned newsies?

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If you're crazy……

It's so dark, I can barely see the forms of the other newsies, hunched in their beds. I must have fallen asleep, though I can't remember. I wonder what time it is. 

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And you know it……

There's a song running through my head, again and again. Maybe that's what woke me up. It's a child's song, one my mother used to sing to me.

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Clap your hands……

Clap your hands……

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Clap your hands……

I clap twice, the sound loud and unfamiliar in contrast to the silence of the bunk room. 

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If you're crazy and you know it……

I wonder why I am doing this. What it is about me that sets me apart from the rest of the boys, the normal ones. The song won't let me follow this thought, though. I've done it too many times before. It's so persistent, beating at the inside of my brain.

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Clap your hands……

Two more claps echo through the stillness. I can hear Pie stirring in the bunk above me. He always did sleep lightly.

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If you're crazy and you know it……

Why is this song coming back to me now, in the middle of the night? I picture my mother, singing with me, laughing. I can't really remember her face anymore, but I remember her hair, long and dark, and her soft laugh.

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And you really want to show it……

We were opposites, my mother and I. She was always kind to everyone, small and slight with her shadow hair. The only thing that connected us as mother and son were our eyes. Whenever I look in the mirror, I imagine that it is her looking back at me, but my eyes don't even seem to fit into her face anymore.

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If you're crazy and you know it, clap your hands……

The sound is flat and loud. I can hear others stirring now, I don't know who.

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If you're crazy and you know it, stamp your feet……

I sit up and swing my feet to the floor. Pie is awake now, he peers over the edge of the bunk, trying to understand what I am doing. It's not just his tiredness- he will never understand. I don't understand either.

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If you're crazy and you know it……

Pie tries to ignore me and go back to sleep. He disappears from my sight, and I can hear him trying to get comfortable again.

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Stamp your feet……

Stomp, stomp. I know that several of the boys are waking up now. I wish they wouldn't.

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If you're crazy and you know it, and you really want to show it……

I don't want to show it, though. I want to forget about it. I don't want the others to see me like this. I don't want to see myself like this. I don't understand. 

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If you're crazy and you know it……

Two people are whispering and glancing at me. I can't see who it is in the dark without my glasses. Why can't they just go back to sleep, like Pie did?

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Stamp your feet……

Twice more. The floor is freezing cold. I am, too. I want to go back to sleep, but I can't. Now one of the two whispering people comes over. It's Mush, I can see him up close. 

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If you're crazy and you know it……

He sits down next to me, and starts talking softly. I hum the tune out loud, not listening to him. Why is he trying to distract me? 

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Shout hurrah……

I shout. My voice is strange the first time I use it. Most of the boys are up now, whispering and pointedly not looking at me. Mush tries to get my attention again, talking to me in a low, urgent voice. I can't listen to him. If I do, I'll forget where I am in the song, I won't finish it.

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If you're crazy and you know it……

There are footsteps on the stairs. Kloppman, come to see what all the fuss is about after we're supposed to be in bed. I try to tune everything out. If they would just leave me alone, let me finish, everything would be fine.

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Shout hurrah……

Hoo-rah! Heads whip around to look at me, and then back, pretending they didn't see anything wrong. Of course there's something wrong; it's me. I'm singing children's rhymes in the middle of the night and I can't stop. That's not a normal thing, I know it.

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If you're crazy and you know it……

Mush pulls Kloppman aside and begins whispering to him. They both keep glancing at me. Why won't they just leave and let me finish? 

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And you really want to show it……

It's getting so loud in here. Everyone is staring at me, or trying not to. Why can't they just accept the fact that there's something wrong and leave off? I suppose, though, if I were one of them, I'd be staring at me too. 

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If you're crazy and you know it……

Now Kloppman comes over, puts his hands on my shoulders, and begins a steady stream of talk. I wrench away from him and bury my face in my pillow.

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Shout hurrah……

I scream, the sound muffled and hysteric, and pull the blanket over my head, trying to block it all out. And my pillow is wet with tears. 


	2. the second

It's Disney's. It's all Disney's. 

Note: please forgive me if I don't portray OCD very well, I have no experience with it. 

I lug a basin of water into a stall, surveying the hubbub around me. People washing, dressing, shaving, talking, everyone in a good mood. Most of them just wash under the pump, but I'm different than them in that way. I like my privacy. So I pump my own water and wash where I'm alone. 

I can hear Blink and Snoddy in the middle of a heated discussion on last week's headlines. Someone bashes on the door of several stalls, including mine, before finding an empty one. With a sigh, I nerve myself and dunk my head. The water is freezing. I finish up as quickly as I can. 

Leaving the water, I steal a towel off of Skittery and go searching for my shirt. Itey is using it to dry himself. I grab it from him, put it on, and scramble for a place in front of the mirror. I'm about as ready as I can be, but my hair isn't quite dry. I rub it vigorously with the towel, retreating to a corner to avoid Skitt as he walks by, searching for it. 

A few minutes later, I run a hand through my hair- it's perfectly dry. But what if there's one small, hidden patch that's still damp? I can't go outside with wet hair.

Suddenly, it is my mother looking out at me from the mirror. Her eyes are my eyes, and her hair hangs loose and wet, with only a trace of its normal waves. I can remember her hand on my head, her smile, her wave from the street, and her wet hair swinging out behind her as she turned and the door swung shut. 

That was the last time I saw her.

I continue rubbing anxiously at my head. I cannot go out with wet hair, I cannot! She always told me I'd catch a cold, or something worse. I inspect myself in the mirror, searching for that one wet spot I know is there somewhere. Even if it is just one hair, I can't go out. Rubbing at it is getting uncomfortable. I pull aside the next newsie I see- Blink. 

"Kid, is my hair wet? At all? Anywhere?"

He looks at me like I belong in some institute, but obliges and inspects my bent head. 

"Not one single hair," he pronounces, and heads off to find a comb. 

I don't trust that. I can't. What if I believed him, and left for the Distribution Center, and he was wrong?

I keep on drying. I'm getting a few strange looks. I discard the towel I'm using, thinking that maybe it's wet, and use the corner of a curtain instead. Specs walks by, and I stop him, asking the same thing that I did of Blink. He looks at me strangely, assures me that my hair is fine, and hurries away. 

The worst part is, deep inside, I know that my hair is perfectly dry. I know that it doesn't matter if it _was_ wet. I know that wet hair never killed anyone, and it's not about to kill me. But I can't stop. I can't bear to think of going out with a wet head. I keep drying and drying and drying, and I know there's something wrong. I wish I could just leave, regardless of my hair, like everyone else. 

I drop the curtain and pick up the towel again.

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If you're crazy and you know it……………


End file.
